It is needed that an icing, which is a common name of sugar coating, satisfies various requirements, for example, improving the eye-appeal of a baked product by imparting a fine texture and a good gloss and having a high spreadability, a high resistance to moisture and a good mouth feel (taste). There are a number of icings. A typical example thereof is so-called flat icings which have been neither creamed or whipped. These flat icings are called in various names (for example, Glace, Fondant and Chocolate Icing) depending on the purpose. They are frequently used for coating pastries and doughnuts. In addition, there are many icings containing fresh cream, margarine, shortening or butter. Further aerated ones such as butter cream, whipped cream, garnish, meringue, marshmallow, nougat and marzipan may be cited by way of example.
A typical icing for coating baked goods, such as bread and cakes, may be prepared by adding small amount of syrup and water to sucrose, heating the mixture to 106.degree. to 107.degree. C. followed by cooling and vigorously grinding the supersaturated solution thus obtained to thereby form microcrystals of sucrose. In this icing, the microcrystals of sucrose are coated with the syrup. An icing called Fondant generally falls within this type.
However, when baked goods are coated with such a conventional icing as described above and then packaged in a sack, the icing is subjected to deliquescence due to its hygroscopicity and moisture content in the baked goods would migrate into the icing, resulting in the dissolution of the sucrose crystals in the icing with a lapse of time. As a result, the white icing becomes transparent and tacky, thus causing "dissolution of icing", which seriously deteriorates the appearance and handling characteristics of the products and damages the commercial value thereof.
Although there has been attempted to add fats and emulsifiers to icings to relieve the dissolution of icing and surface tackiness, these problems cannot be solved thereby.
On the other hand, there has been known a method for preventing dissolution of sucrose in a chocolate icing by coating sucrose crystals with a fat. More particularly, this method comprises mixing sucrose, fat and an emulsifier and finely grinding sucrose crystals with a triple roll mill in such a manner as to give a particle size of approximately 20 .mu.m. When the icing contains 60 wt % or more of sugar and 40 wt % or less of fat, however, the flowability of the icing is lowered even though heating to 70.degree. C. and thus the handling characteristics such as spreadability of the product are deteriorated. Although the flowability may be improved by elevating the fat content, there is a risk in this case that an intense fat taste and a waxy mouth feel become noticeable and thus the sweetness is masked.
Accordingly, there has been required to develop an icing which contains a large amount of sugar and a small amount of fat and has a high flowability upon heating.
Attempts have been made to reduce the hygroscopicity of an icing. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,699,688 has proposed to add malto-dextrin as a stabilizer; U.S. Pat. No. 3,676,155 has proposed to replace some portion of sucrose with a dextrose powder; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,415,601 has proposed to add vegetable starch and powdered whey mixed with a high melting point fat. However, these attempts have not yet been sufficient.